The present invention relates to feeder mechanisms for automatically feeding sheets, such as copy paper, into an operating mechanism such as a photocopier, and particularly, relates to sheet feeder mechanisms of the type having an open receptacle or tray loaded by the user for a particular print job. More particularly, the disclosure relates to sheet feeder mechanisms of the aforesaid type where the user needs less than about one hundred sheets of paper in the stack loaded into the feeder.
Heretofore, sheet stack feeder mechanisms, and particularly those employed in photocopiers have encountered problems with the loading and feeding of the sheet stack into the feeder mechanism because of the difficulties in aligning the stack of sheets such that all the sheets in the stack have their leading edge parallel to the feeder rolls and initially have the leading edge of the sheets in the stack aligned vertically with respect to the surface of the tray or receptacle. In sheet stack feeder mechanisms having an open tray for loading the sheets, the user has often encountered difficulty in preventing the sheets in the stack from becoming skewed with respect to the feeder mechanism with the result that the feeder mechanism becomes jammed requiring the user to release the feeder mechanism and removed the jammed sheets. Furthermore, users often push a stack of sheets into the feed mechanism causing multifeeds, e.g. more than one sheet is fed into the machine with no gap between sheets.
Thus, it has been desired to find a way or means of preventing the skewing of sheets loaded into a tray for entry into an automatic sheet feeder mechanism and to prevent skewing and misalignment of the sheets during loading of the tray or receptacle by the user. In particular, it has been desired to provide a way or means for registering the leading edge of the sheets in the stack for proper alignment to enter the feeder mechanism and to prevent multifeeding of sheets.